Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 28-August-11
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Time Limit (1957)

The military drama Time Limit would make a good study for an officers' training or ethics class. It concerns a major in the U.S. Army (Richard Basehart) who is being investigated for a possible court-martial because he worked for the enemy during the Korean War. Although the major refuses to defend himself and basically asks to be hanged, the colonel conducting the investigation (Richard Widmark) senses that there's more to the case than meets the eye. His probing illustrates how much military imperatives differ from civilian ones and how the definition of right and wrong may depend on context.

Widmark is reliably excellent in the central role of truth-seeker. His character, Colonel Edwards, receives increasing pressure from a general (Carl Benton Reid) to expedite the court-martial — hence the title — but his professionalism doesn't allow him to brush aside such a serious matter. Supported by his right-hand woman (Dolores Michaels), he digs into the reason for the major's cooperation with the North Koreans during his time in a POW camp. An interview with the major's wife solidifies Edwards' hunch that the major is a man of integrity unlikely to embrace new doctrines, such as communism, for the sake of expedience. (Also that the major is suffering greatly from depression.) A cross-examination of another inmate from the POW camp (Rip Torn) unearths a mysterious cover-up. Clearly something happened in the camp that led to the deaths of two soldiers and the major's apparent crossing-over to the enemy.

At one point a rough-edged sergeant (Martin Balsam) verbally attacks the major because he's concerned that Edwards is ruining his career by defending a traitor. This expression of friendship is a breach of protocol which foreshadows the crux of the movie. The secret to the major's treason lies in the fact that his humanity trumped his adherence to the military code of conduct. When this truth comes out Edwards accepts it as a reasonable, even commendable excuse, but the movie doesn't leave it at that. The general, who has a personal tie to the affair, argues that a commander of men in wartime cannot deviate from protocol and that the rules of the army are his sole moral authority above his own conscience. Neither viewpoint is debated or dismissed. What one takes away from Time Limit is that men are sorely tried during desperate situations such as war and that their inherent decency can be tragically reviled as a crime.

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